I live in a small town that backs up to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
That means I drive 45 minutes to the vacuum repair shop and 6 minutes to one of the most loved trails in the country.
If you are a walking regular, you begin to know the people that share your schedule and your trail.
I know Rita. She is a highly respected businesswoman in our town, civic-minded and matriarch of a wonderful family. And she is a size 2, I'm guessing, even on her fat days.
I've seen her walking for a long time but alas, yesterday, she was running.
Never mind that I precede her in birth by at least a decade and a half. I still had to decide if I was going to measure myself by all things Rita.
Women do that, you know. We size up someone else's sizes down (from us) and hop on the I-don't-measure-up train. And then, even as a perfectly content walker, I think about running. Should I? Why don't I? Why didn't I start decades ago?
The cool thing is that yesterday I decided to grant myself mercy. You know, a bit like the mercy Jesus gives. I didn't measure up to all things Rita (like we don't have a prayer stacked up against the holiness of God) but I made the conscious decision that I love my exercise pattern just the way it is (like Jesus loves us just the way we are).
So Rita the Runner and Mercy Me will pass again in the beauty of that national forest, both content with who we are becoming.
I hope that makes God smile.
